EVC Galley Makeover (and more): Winnebago Nuke & Pave

[kourt]

Some of you may know me from the Vanagon forum, where I enjoyed nine years of hacking my Westy to better form and function. I sold the Vanagon in August and a week later found myself flying to San Jose to pick up a 2001 Eurovan Winnebago Camper. I drove it home without incident.

Well, that's not entirely true. Every time I looked in the back of the camper I cringed at the design and layout of the galley, and other features. Two thousand miles later, I had a plan.

When I got home I removed the entire galley lid, sink, stove, and refrigerator. The lid was clumsy and completely blocked the nearby window when open. The sink was located aft, so that when the bed was deployed you were standing in the bed in order to wash your hands. There was not a lot of counter space.

Some other things had to go, namely the medicine cabinet Winnebago built into the cabinets. Fairly useless and it introduced a wall that ruined any chance for open space next to the rear passenger bench.

Here's a shopping list:

18.5" LED rail lights to replace the original fluorescent light
Caframo Kona fan to help move air
Dometic 9722R combo sink-stove with independent glass tops for the main galley services
Dometic CRX-65U refrigerator
KUS water level gauge and sender (installed similar to this guy)
12v folding cold-only faucet

A bit of shopping, laminating, and reshaping of the cabinets and here's where we are today:

The result is a much more colorful, open space. I needed to accommodate the monitors for the electronic improvements (Renogy inverter, DCDC charger) and some ham radio equipment, so I made a little control panel with all of that integrated.

The aft bulkhead of the cooktop has USB ports and a 12v cigarette lighter port.

The entire floor was ripped out and replaced with new plywood with quiet underlayment, and small coin floor on top.

Some details:

Water System

I couldn't believe that the Winnebago fresh water tank had no inspection port, so I cut a hole in the bottom of the closet, cut a hole in the top of the tank, and inserted a clear 4" inspection port and then mounted the KUS water level sender in the lid of the port. I scrubbed and flushed the tank and now we're as good as new.

I also placed a water filter housing inline in the water feed that takes out sediments. The housing is easily accessed behind the new cabinet door aft of the refrigerator.

The Dometic sink has a faucet hole that is placed in a corner. Terrible. So I covered that and drilled a new hole to accommodate the new faucet.

The little kitchen spray shower in the EVC tailgate is cute but also terrible, and it's stupid to locate water appliances above the load panel. I repurposed one of the former propane vents for the old refrigerator into a spray port (like on my old Vanagon) using the RecPro spray port and hose combo:

Lastly, in nine years of Vanagon Westy camping I never needed a gray water system, so I totally removed that from my van.

Electrical System

The house battery and its box were given away and a BattleBorn 270Ah lithium battery was installed. Great fit.

The Winnebago's original charger was thrown out and a Renogy DCDC charger was installed near the battery. When solar is added, this will manage solar or alternator charging of the house battery. Venting was added to the battery box to accommodate the charger thermal load.

While I was in there, I converted the old battery box vent to an on-board compressed air port, much like I did in my Vanagon:

I added a 2000w Renogy inverter that now lives under the Suburban heater.

The old load panel was junk, so I threw that out and built up a new one out of some Blue Sea components:

This panel allows me to briefly connect the house and start batteries to self jump if necessary. It works!

Monitors on the galley: I threw them out. The propane tank has a manual gauge on the tank itself. The battery voltage is now conveyed on the control panel I created. The fresh water level is indicated by the KUS gauge. The gray water system is gone.

Other things: all the foam in all the cushions and seats was stained and old. I threw it all out and got new cuts from https://www.foambymail.com. I had an upholsterer put firmer foam in the rear bench seat.

Lastly: better cupholders!

Early next year this van's poptop will be replaced with the Reimo LWB poptop, which will accommodate heavy loads, like two kayaks.

kourt

[MrPulldown]

Fantastic
_________________
2002 EVC

[VanGeek]

Wow this looks fantastic.
Looks much better, more functional, and open/bright!

[kourt]

Thank you all. It was a lot of focused work, and I'm glad someone other than just me (and my wife) are liking it. Sometimes when you look at a project for too long, you start to see it in the negative. This one turned out nice.

Remarkably, I still haven't camped in this van, except for one night on the drive home from San Jose. Now that it's cooler in Texas, we're set for some nice camping in this new van.

Oh, I almost forgot...

Tables

Tables are hard in the Eurovan. The Winnebago table setup works, but it lacks the elegance of the Westfalia table system. I tried to build a Westy system and failed--not enough space to make it happen, and the table heights would be too high. I tried the Lagun table system--great system, but the numerous clamps for the tables end up blocking the drawers, cabinets, and limiting the tables themselves.

I am building new custom tables with a slightly different table leg, but still using the odd-profile Winnebago slot mount system. More photos on that later.

kourt

[1961tbird]

Wow. My wife especially liked the redesigned sink/stove configuration

My pet peeve is the useless LED monitors. What did you use the monitor the propane level?

[mikemtnbike]

Impressive kourt. I’m thinking about rebuilding the whole bed frame and as part of that moving the electrical panel stuff and house battery into the cabinet area one cannot access with the lower bed out, putting in drawers to open out the hatch instead. Did you consider moving all that as described?
_________________
1991 Vanagon GL 2.1 AT Westfauxlia. "Frankie" Totaled https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=764510&highlight=carnage
1995 Eurovan Camper "Marzivan"
2020 GTI SE manual

[kourt]

[mikemtnbike]

Yeah that makes sense. This is going to be a winter long project for me and am just in the imagineering phase at this point. It’s interesting to see what folks focus on with the Winnebago interior. My pet peeves are the closet doors, going tambour, and the bed design. The galley area is fine for our use.

Like I said, interesting and impressive!
_________________
1991 Vanagon GL 2.1 AT Westfauxlia. "Frankie" Totaled https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=764510&highlight=carnage
1995 Eurovan Camper "Marzivan"
2020 GTI SE manual

[OB Bus]

Curious as to your choice of the Dometic fridge vs the Truckfridge or Vitrifrigo. Dometic seems to be ~$400 more that the admittedly hard-to-find Truckfridge or Virtrifrigo.
Our Norcold was barely functional on our last road trip 2 years ago. I want to change it our before the next trip.
And how was the install on the Dometic?
_________________
Larry in OB
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!
69 Westfalia and 2002 Eurovan Camper.

[kourt]

Good question. Here's why I chose the Dometic.

I previously had a Truckfridge TF49 in my Vanagon. It was an average fridge for the money, but to make it perform better, it needed a lot of upgrades.

One will occasionally see a person upgrade their TF49 with an Inkbird controller. It's just a binary thermostat, so not much of an upgrade. It doesn't vary the compressor speed at all--just turns it on/off.

The TF49 has a one-speed compressor. That means it is incapable of running faster when there is a voltage surplus, or slower when efficiency is warranted. To upgrade the TF49 requires a new compressor controller and an Isotherm Intelligent Temperature Control upgrade. See my Vanagon thread on this subject.

The Dometic comes with all that out of the box. It's one of the few small DC refrigerators that actually has variable compressor control included. It also has a reconfigurable interior, where you can remove the freezer box and have more refrigerator space. It even has a condensate drain if you want to install it.

The Dometic also has full on/off control within the fridge. You can leave it connected to DC power but turned off, and still leave the door open to air it out without the light coming on. The TF49 won't do that. The camper's refrigerator is so important, in my opinion, that it really needs to be done right and making a spend on it was easy to justify.

The installation was a matter of creating a platform with adequate clearance from the sink above, and then building the walls on either side. I shimmed the Dometic in place with coroplast boards, and screwed it to the walls using the Dometic's interior screw holes. Ventilation is by drawing air underneath the bottom front of the fridge and up through the back wall, and up/out behind the galley.

kourt

[sunnysocalvan]

This looks so good. Very impressive. How do you deal with water from the sink now you’ve removed the grey water system? I’d love to do the same and have a small container under the sink to just lift out and empty.

[kourt]

We usually camp in forests or the beach, so in those cases it goes straight to the ground. For campgrounds, we put a container below the drain and catch what drains out, and take it to the local gray water dumping spot. That has worked well for nine years.

kourt

[kourt]

Let's talk about tables!

The fundamental design of the Winnebago galley makes it hard to adopt a Vanagon Westfalia table system, where an L-shaped tube leg swivels in a hole in the galley. It just won't work with this system.

I also played around with the very nice Lagun table system, but couldn't make it work, either.

In the end, I decided to just build new tables for the original Winnebago clip-on system, but with better hardware.

I contacted Winnebagoparts.com and discovered that they do still offer the odd-profile steel table clips, so I ordered two. About four weeks and $100 later, they arrived, brand new and nicely painted in an almond color.

For the larger table, I used a stainless steel 80cm telescoping table leg, which I measured for height and drilled an additional hole to make it click-stop at the right height for the Winnebago.

The small table is my idea for a quick, legless table. There are several other good small tables shown on The Samba, but they were often too small to be practical. This table uses an 8" folding stainless steel shelf bracket with some cutting board material added to the contact point to keep from marring the galley faces.

Both tables store neatly behind a scratchbuilt bungee table keeper where the original clumsy Winnebago table keeper system was. The same type of bungee was used to make the paper towel holder behind the driver seat.

I hope everyone finds this information useful. We are test camping this whole setup over Thanksgiving on the Texas coast.

kourt

Table storage and paper towel holder:

Underside of large table, showing new table leg concept:

Large table mounted, showing underside:

Large table mounted, showing the working side:

Underside of small table, showing folded shelf bracket:

Underside of small table, showing how it braces against the galley face:

Underside of small table, showing how it fits in the forward face of the galley:

Working side of small table, showing its position relative to the front seats:

[kourt]

First Camping Trip!

We enjoyed a successful first camping trip with this van to the beach on the Texas Gulf Coast near Port Aransas. The days were windy with a mix of cloud and sun, highs in the upper 60s, and lows right around 60 degrees. All systems worked well.

Due to coastal flooding we were forced to find an improvised beach campsite, and this set the tone for our new van. We are trying to make no assumptions based on our prior nine years of Vanagon Westy camping, and instead are clearing our heads for the new Eurovan experience. Everyone had a good time.

The last photo shows the sled kite I used to fly an amateur radio antenna from the van, and talk to people all over North America on the 20 meter and 40 meter bands throughout the day on Wednesday. Probably the best combination of my favorite activities: van camping, beach time, talking on the ham radio, drinking good beer, and eating good food.

kourt

[obnoxiousblue]

Kourt, great set up it looks fantastic.
I’m curious where you pulled power from for your radio?
I’m looking to install my ID5100 in my 01EVC and am having a tough spot finding a happy power supply before I start installing.
I would prefer (and you likely would agree) to wire direct to battery or at least to a clean fused power supply rather than T tapping another accessory line.
What do you think of using the 12V accessory plug on the kitchen cabinet?
Im likely going to mount the radio body to the forward-facing panel of the kitchen cabinet (where the tables stand when not in use)
I have a 16 foot antenna lead and I’ll probably mount my comet up on the front right fender. Not ideal but I don’t want to drill holes in the plastic panels of the roof.
_________________
Mike
1964 Beetle
2001 Eurovan Camper

[kourt]

Howdy Mike,

I built a new DC load panel in the back of the van. That panel has a circuit dedicated to radios. Everything ham radio comes from that circuit. I don't have a suggestion for you in terms of working from how the Winnebago wiring is configured, because I rewired my own solution.

This panel is a Blue Sea 8690 panel but I modified it with a DC bus bar and a different red rotary battery switch. It's not something you can buy configured like I have it--you have to be willing to modify it to fit your needs. I bought this panel because it's a good fit for the space where the old panel was.

In the photo, the House circuit is basically the galley, including the refrigerator. The Lights circuit is all lights, USB, and cigarette lighter ports in the van (there are a lot of them). The 12vDC circuit is for the air compressor (Blue Sea does not make it easy to buy that label, so I just put the 12vDC label on there). The Radio circuit is for ham radios. The Inverter circuit is for the inverter.

The red rotary switch allows me to combine the house and start batteries for a self-jump scenario, and a few other things like redirecting the onboard DC charger current into either battery.

My ham radio needs are such that the current draws are sometimes massive for the amplifiers for VHF bands.

For your radios, I don't know what type of wattage you want to output, so I can't comment on using the 12v accessory plug on the galley. I would not rely on it, myself, but would direct wire to the house battery if you are comfortable with doing that.

kourt

[Kulshancruising]

Wow thanks for sharing, great content! I may need to replicate your legless table design sometime. Currently in the middle of replacing a rotted floor due to a leaky roof vent and galley window in my 95 EVC, and want to use the coin roll flooring. How did you handle the transition at the sliding door and rear hatch, any pics? Someone told me it is too thick to roll around the plywood subfloor edges as the original vinyl does. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge, love the functionality of your redesigned galley!

[kourt]

The transitions at the tailgate and slider are easier if you use a router with a "round over" bit to take the hard edge off both the top and underside of the thresholds. Once that is done, you'll need to cut the coin floor carefully and use a pneumatic stapler to secure the flooring. I practiced with a piece of discarded coin floor and plywood.

I noticed the coin floor is actually routable, so another way to do this is to not wrap it at all, but instead adhere it with liberal glue, let it dry for a week, and then route the entire threshold, leaving an exposed plywood edge topped by a layer of coin floor that is also routed with the plywood edge. That may be the best approach.

kourt

[mikemtnbike]

[kourt]

Today's Update: Making the aft ceiling interesting and useful.

My old Vanagon had a rear ceiling map and cargo space, so I decided to make that for my EVC. This was a crowd favorite in my old van.

In a nutshell, I removed the rear ceiling panel, threw out the anchors and lights, obtained new panel material (5mm underlayment from Home Depot), covered it with orange formica, put a laminated map on it, covered the map with a plexiglas pocket window (where menus, photos, and other goodies can be slipped under the plexiglas), added some cargo pockets, and installed.

kourt

The view from the open hatchback:

The view from the stateroom floor:

The little knob to loosen the plexiglas for slipping items in there for safe keeping: